Madeleine's mother: 'We won't be bullied out of Portugal'

A defiant Kate McCann has insisted that she and her husband will not be hounded out of Portugal.

As the vilification of the couple continued in Praia da Luz, she said: "Sticks and stones... we will never go through anything worse than being parted from Madeleine.

"We will not be leaving or be forced out. I am not prepared to be bullied into doing something that I don't want to."

In the latest slur yesterday, it was suggested that locals now refer to the couple as "those bloody McCanns" and wish that they would return to Britain because of the damage to the town's reputation and economy.

The revelation came from Francisco Pagarete, lawyer for Robert Murat, the only suspect in the Madeleine case.

He said he and others living in Praia thought it "strange" that parents would leave their children alone in a foreign country.

"It's not attacking the McCanns in any way, but it's not the normal thing to do," he said.

"People in Praia da Luz now say, 'These bloody McCanns should just go away and leave this town. They are giving it a bad name'."

He said he was simply reporting the words of local residents who were suffering financially because of the dip in tourism following Madeleine's disappearance.

Mrs McCann, who tomorrow faces the 100th day since four-year-old Madeleine vanished, said in response: "We can cope with a lot and we still have a lot of strength, but this speculation and the actions of the Portuguese Press has been hurtful, intrusive and disrespectful to our other two children. The Press here have badly overstepped any reasonable line.

"The last week has been particularly difficult, but we want to focus on Madeleine, not us. We are a fairly ordinary couple and we really are in the most extraordinarily difficult circumstances, but we have to do our best to find Madeleine."

In an interview with the BBC Mr McCann called on police to tell them about evidence that reportedly contradicts the belief that their daughter was abducted.

Mr McCann said: "I want to see evidence which has caused their shift because it's so important to us as parents that if there is evidence, we need to know about it."

He added: "There's definitely been a shift. They haven't said that she's dead, on multiple occasions they (said they) believed they were looking for a missing child, but there's been a shift."

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The last seven days have been some of the worst in the 14 harrowing weeks the McCanns have endured since the disappearance.

They have been the subject of an extraordinary and increasingly lurid smear campaign in Portuguese newspapers, suffering accusation by innuendo of being involved in their little girl's killing after the discovery of blood on the walls of their apartment.

Mr McCann told the BBC: "It's incredibly difficult when people are implying that your daughter's dead and that you may have been involved in it.

"I mean that is just unbelievable, to try to cope with both of these things."

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The 100th day since the disappearance will be marked in Britain tomorrow by events, prayers and pledges of support for the Madeleine campaign from sportsmen, including Jonny Wilkinson, Frankie Dettori and Everton Football Club.

But in Praia da Luz, the McCanns will spend the day 'quietly', only emerging to attend a special church service in the resort.

"It doesn't get any easier," said Mrs McCann. "The 50th day seemed like such a long time when we marked that. We have doubled that now."

The couple are unable to discuss the police investigation which last week found traces of blood on the wall of Madeleine's bedroom and now involves fresh searches of the resort with Britishtrained sniffer dogs.

Mr McCann said: "There has been a lot of speculation and clearly there has been a shift in the investigation. There are the new searches and the speculation about blood. But we do not know of any new evidence to suggest that Madeleine is not alive. If the change in direction means we find out what happened... we have got to know what happened.

"Poignantly, when I was in Washington, I spoke to the father of Elizabeth Smart, a 14-year-old who was abducted at gunpoint while she was in her bed. She was missing for nine months and people had given up hope. Ed Smart said people had told him to move on, but he wouldn't give up hope."

It is the experience of parents in similar situations which continues to give the couple hope.

They have been in contact with the parents of Jeremy Vargas, an eight-year-old who vanished on Gran Canaria in March and the mother of Ben Needham, who went missing when aged two on the Greek island of Kos in 1991.

Today they will help launch an international YouTube page for missing children called Don't You Forget About Me. Aimed at the millions of 16 to 24-year-olds who visit the video website each day, it will contain film and stills of youngsters who have disappeared.

Mr McCann pointed out that there are already 229 videos connected to the Madeleine campaign on YouTube and one alone has been visited 50,000 times.

Mrs McCann said the couple no longer rush frantic with hope to the phone when it rings.

"It doesn't have the same effect now as it did. We don't allow ourselves to get too excited. You would like to, but you cannot. It would be too much of a rollercoaster."